Two hurricanes and a winter storm in 2018 have Duke Energy looking for ways to pay off significant short-term costs it absorbed to restore power to hundreds of thousands of South Carolina customers.

The Charlotte, North Carolina-based company plans to address its storm debts in a proposal that will hit the state Public Service Commission's door in early 2019, a spokesman said Thursday.

"These storms caused significant devastation that required us to completely rebuild parts of our system in order to restore power to our customers," Duke spokesman Ryan Mosier wrote in an email Thursday to The News.

The storms could very well mean higher power bills, but the timing is difficult.

Just last month the company proposed separate, significant rate increases on its 591,000 South Carolina customers that it said were necessary to modernize its power grid, produce cleaner energy and clean up old coal ash basins.

Under the Nov. 8 proposal that commissioners will consider in an April 11 hearing in Columbia residential customers would be looking at a 12 percent rate increase while industrial and commercial customers are looking at 8.8 and 7.7 percent increases respectively.

That proposal has drawn complaints from several South Carolina power customers living on fixed incomes and wary of Duke's out-of-state costs. Walmart and Nucor Steel also have filed motions with the public service commission asking to weigh in.

Maurice Mitten of Jefferson, South Carolina, raised the high cost of Duke's cleanup projects in North Carolina in a letter on file with the commission.

"We feel South Carolina is being used by Duke Energy as a place to grab for more money!" Mitten wrote.

Duke customer Bob Eakin brought up Duke CEO Lynn Good's salary, which the Associated Press reported in March had jumped from to $21.4 million in 2017 compared to $10.8 million in 2015.

"I am a retired chemical industry executive and this type of increase is out of line for a company that has a marginal performance record during 2017 and 2018," Eakin wrote to the commission.

“These storms caused significant devastation that required us to completely rebuild parts of our system in order to restore power to our customers.”

Ryan Mosier, Duke Energy

State Sen. Shane Massey, who has been trying to help the power industry with a financing bill, said Duke Energy is a good company. The Edgefield lawmaker is an SCE&G customer.

"Duke has lower rates than everybody else," he said.

Duke Energy has not made public how much debt it has because of the storm damage. The publicly traded utility also did not release how much power bills might have to go up to cover those costs. Any rate increase would come after a public proposal, comment period and hearings before the South Carolina Public Service Commission, the public body that regulates utilities.

"The final storm costs will be included in the filing next year," Mosier wrote in an email to The Greenville News.

Within a four-month span the Carolinas endured three storms "that claimed lives, crippled communities and destroyed homes and businesses," Mosier wrote. Hurricanes Florence and Michael hit within three weeks of each other this fall followed on Dec. 10 by snow and ice in the eastern Carolinas that closed schools and disrupted power service for days.

Duke Energy has observed that the number of billion-dollar storms striking the Carolinas is increasing, raising concerns long-term about their costs, Mosier said.

The utility has been discussing the possibility of rate hikes since fall of 2017 when it issued its Power/Forward Carolina initiative. That plan — which would be paid for with the rate hikes proposed last month — includes burying power lines and other storm-mitigation measures.

"More and more customers are affected by the increasing frequency and severity of storms," Mosier said.

Several North Carolina news outlets reported Thursday that customers there could face higher power bills from Duke in the wake of these storms, but Mosier said Duke is pursuing a solution that could mitigate rate increases in South Carolina.

If Duke can secure its debt and sell it in the form of bonds on Wall Street, the cost of that debt will be much lower, Mosier said.

"Overall, a securitization plan would minimize interest costs resulting in lower rates for customers," Mosier said. "Other coastal states like Texas, Louisiana and Florida have enacted similar legislation for the benefit of customers."

First though, South Carolina would have to change its laws on the subject. With storm expenses in mind as well as the billions of dollars in debt that another utility, SCE&G, has incurred with its failed V.C. Summer nuclear reactor, Massey, the state senator in Edgefield, has proposed legislation that would allow utilities to issue secured bonds on emergency costs.

The same bill, which would have to survive committee debate and floor votes in the state House and Senate, would also allow SCE&G to issue bonds related to the failed nuclear plant.

"Duke has these storm costs that they are going to be able to recover from customers," Massey said. "The traditional way of doing that is to seek a rate increase and to have that on the bill for a number of years, in which case they are paying interest on things like that. It takes Duke a long time to recoup its costs."